Book excerpt: No matter how you were touched by the events of September 11, 2001, that moment continues to resonate. Crossing the Rift: North Carolina Poets on 9/11 & Its Aftermath illuminates not only what happened that day, but what continues to challenge us twenty years later: Islamophobia, the vilification of refugees and asylum-seekers, nationalism, supercharged military budgets, and rises in virulent racism and domestic terrorism. Edited by former North Carolina poet laureate Joseph Bathanti and 9/11 family member and former literature and theater director for the North Carolina Arts Council David Potorti, Crossing the Rift takes head-on what Carolyn Forche calls "the poetry of witness" and its advocacy "for a shared sense of humanity and collective resistance."